


In the Early Morning Hours

by acolonf6



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Alternates, Platonic Bedsharing, References to Arctic Monkeys, Slow-ish burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-05 14:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1820941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acolonf6/pseuds/acolonf6
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles remembers sleep, remembers it well. Stiles and sleep are totally buds…or at least they used to be. Ever since everything with the nogitsune went down, sleeping just hasn’t been the same. </p><p>(Until Derek starts showing up)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Do I Wanna Know?

**Author's Note:**

> So this was inspired pretty much entirely by me listening to AM by the Arctic Monkeys all the damn time. There will be a chapter for every song on the album. This will probably make a bit more sense if you're familiar with that album, but it's not entirely necessary.
> 
> I don't know exactly where this fits into canon. Consider it an alternate Season 4, or possibly a Pocket Universe at the end of Season 3, just before that final scene.

Stiles remembers sleep, remembers it well. Stiles and sleep are totally buds…or at least they used to be. Ever since everything with the nogitsune went down, sleeping just hasn’t been the same.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to sleep; Stiles is definitely ready for his sleep cycles to get back to normal. It’s just that every night when he lays down in bed, everything just feels _off_. Not even having his special pillow helps. Stiles remembers what drifting off to a good night’s sleep used to feel like, when every time he exhaled he felt like he was sinking deeper into the cocoon of his soft mattress and fluffy blankets. Now though, he feels like he’s floating just above the bed, unable to relax. His mattress feels stiff, his blankets feel scratchy, and his pillow—his beloved perfect pillow—feels lumpy and awkward beneath his head.

Stiles rolls over one more time, trying to get comfortable, before sighing and giving up.

“I can’t sleep,” he says aloud, to his ceiling. “At this point I’m considering climbing up on the roof to watch the sunrise. It would probably be more productive.”

The window slides open across the room, and Derek slides in. “How did you know I was up there?”

“Lucky guess,” Stiles says with a smirk that he’s sure Derek can see, even though it’s dark in Stiles’s room. Back when all of this started, Stiles had found Derek’s more stalker-ish tendencies profoundly creepy and more than a little invasive. Now though, when they’ve all lost so many friends, no one in the pack would begrudge Derek wanting to keep an eye on everyone and make sure that they were safe.

“You look exhausted,” Derek comments, with his usual lack of tact.

“Thanks for noticing,” Stiles says rolling his eyes. “You’re not looking too well-rested yourself, you know. When was the last time _you_ got a full night of sleep?”

Derek shifts uncomfortably next to the window “I’ve been out a lot at night, making sure everything’s still calm out there,” Derek says, and then he’s quiet for a long moment. “And now I have, I guess, so I should go back to the loft and try to catch up that beauty sleep you keep insisting I need.”

“Or, you could _not_ run all the way back across town and just crash here,” Stiles offers. “That option has the added bonus of you being able to make sure that nothing scarier than you crawls though my window tonight.”

“You sure?” Derek asks, glancing towards the door of. “Your Dad—”

“Doesn’t think you’re a murderer anymore and has actually asked for your help on multiple occasions. Come on, there’s no need to run yourself even more ragged.”

Derek grumbles something unintelligible under his breath, but moves towards the bed anyway.

Instead of asking Stiles to move over and getting in on the outside edge of the bed, like a _normal person_ would, Derek climbs over Stiles and puts his back to the wall so that he has both Stiles and the window in his line of sight at the same time. _Ever the guard dog, dude._ Stiles barely resists the urge to say it out loud.

It’s awkward for a few moments, but then Derek settles in, and Stiles can feel Derek’s slow, steady breaths on the back of his neck. Somehow, despite the fact that there is a large grumpy werewolf in his bed, it’s a calming presence, and finally, _finally_ , Stiles drifts off to sleep.

***

Stiles is woken up the next morning by another werewolf climbing through his bedroom window. This time, it’s Scott.

Stiles looks behind him, and then glances around the rest of the room, but Derek is nowhere to be seen.

“Looking for Derek?” Scott asks.

“Huh? Wha?” Stiles asks in return, still just barely awake.

“Your room reeks of him, dude. Did he stay here all night?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles says. “I don’t know when he left. He was lurking on the roof so I invited him in, but I don’t know how long he stayed. For all I know he bolted as soon as I fell asleep.”

“Well you actually fell asleep for once, so that’s something,” Scott says.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Stiles concedes. “So what did you want? Some icky new danger afoot already?”

“Icky? No dude, we have that Chem project to work on. Did you forget?”

“No, I didn’t forget, I just didn’t think a Chem project warranted a window entrance. Why didn’t you just use the door?”

Scott just shrugs. “Window seemed easier, I guess.”

“Of course it did. Come on, let’s go see if there’s any coffee left downstairs, then we can attempt to work on Chemistry.”

***

They do manage to make some progress on their project in between video games. But before they know it, Scott has to leave to go home for dinner with his mom and Isaac. Stiles has dinner with his dad, plays some more video games, and suddenly Stiles is right back in the same place, staring at his ceiling, and wishing he could fall asleep.

Stiles hears his phone ring from beside his bed. When he looks at the screen, he’s not surprised to see that it’s Derek; most of his other friends would just text, and his Dad wouldn’t be calling when he’s right downstairs. He is surprised, though, at his ringtone. He usually keeps it on vibrate, and even if the volume did accidentally get turned on he would expect to hear the default tone, but instead he hears it playing the heavy beat of a familiar song.

_There’s this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow…_

Stiles answers the call before the song can get any further, nearly knocking over the glass of water sitting next to it. “Hello?”

“Hey, I just wanted to let you know I’m on my way to you,” Derek says.

“Something up or are you just making your rounds?” Stiles asks, hoping there’s nothing big to worry about.

“Just making my rounds, figured I’d let you know in case you were talking to your empty roof again.”

“Very funny, how far out are you?” Stiles crosses the room to open the window for Derek and almost gets kicked in the face as Derek swings into the room. “I guess you’re pretty close, then,” Stiles says into his phone and then ends the call.

“Arctic Monkeys?” Derek asks with a raised eyebrow.

“You heard that? Scott was over earlier, he must have changed it.”

“And you didn’t even notice he’d taken it?”

“Yeah, he’s getting good at being sneaky. We’re lucky he’s one of the good guys,” Stiles says. “I’m surprised you even recognized the song.”

“Isaac listened to AM a lot when it first came out,” Derek explains. “It’s better than some of the other music he listens to.”

Stiles smiles, knowing that he’s thinking back to when half the pack had decided that a Lorde song should be the pack’s theme song.

“Yeah, it’s a good album,” Stiles agrees. “I’m just not sure why Scott made it my ringtone. His idea of a dumb joke, I guess.”

“Well, it’s a fitting song for you,” Derek smirks. It looks suspiciously like his _I’m about to make a joke at Stiles’s expense_ smirk. “ _Too busy being yours to fall for somebody new,_ that’s the story of you and Lydia to a T.”

 “Yeah, I guess it does,” Stiles says with a nervous laugh. The only problem with that theory is that Scott didn’t set it as his Lydia ringtone. He looks down at his phone and goes to the sound settings to check if his suspicions are correct. It’s not his general ringtone, it’s a personalized ringtone, just for Derek. Well, _shit_.

“So how is it out there? Still all quiet?” Stiles asks, trying to change the subject.

“Yeah, everyone’s safe for now.”

“Good. So…did you end up getting any sleep last night? You were gone by the time I woke up,” Stiles tries not to sound too disappointed.

“You don’t have to worry about me so much,” Derek says, as he goes over to Stiles’s bed, takes off his shoes, and lays down. Apparently he’s staying again. _Was_ _sorta hoping that you’d stay_. “Maybe I just sleep better once I know that everyone’s alright.”

“So does that mean that you _did_ sleep last night?” Stiles asks stubbornly as he gets back into bed next to Derek.

“Yes, I did. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you feel asleep, too.”

“Maybe I just sleep better once I know that everyone is safe,” Stiles throws back at him as he closes his eyes, hoping that Derek will still be there in the morning.

 


	2. R U Mine?

The sound of the window sliding open woke Stiles up the next morning, it was Derek about to leave. He moved to sit up, and the sound of the rustling sheets must have caught Derek’s attention, because he turned around to look at Stiles. He didn’t say anything, just smiled and slipped out the window.

Well, at least he’d looked well-rested.

***

Stiles mostly forgot about the ringtone debacle, except for punching Scott in the arm and calling him an asshole the next time he saw him. He didn’t really think about it again until one day when he was hanging out at Scott’s after school with Scott and Isaac. Both the Sheriff and Melissa were working that night; it was sort of tradition that they’d hang out together and keep each other company when their parents’ night shifts coincided with each other.

Everything’s fine until suddenly Scott and Isaac start acting weird. They keep exchanging glances and laughing at something that Stiles assumes must be werewolf related. Then the weird questions start.

“So, have you seen Derek lately?” Isaac asks.

“Um, I see him when he checks in,” Stiles says, wondering where this is going. “But you know Derek, he doesn’t always stop to say hi, sometimes he just lurks outside till he knows I’m okay and then moves on.”

“So he hasn’t been, you know, sticking around recently?” Scott asks, grinning.

Stiles responds by throwing an empty soda can at Scott’s head. It bounces off and hits the floor.

“What’s up with the Derek questions? Haven’t you guys seen him lately?” Stiles asks, in an attempt at deflecting Scott’s question.

“Oh, you know, he’s been around,” Isaac replies cryptically.

“Are you guys being douchebags to him again?” Stiles asks indignantly. “I thought we agreed that Derek deserves Nice Things sometimes.”

“You know, you’re right. We should be more inclusive,” Scott says. “You should call him and invite him to join us.”

Stiles tries to think of a witty comeback, but he decides to conserve his energy and pulls out his phone to call Derek instead.

Faintly, Stiles hears a noise outside the open window. The sounds gets louder, as if coming closer, and the noise resolves itself into a song. _I go crazy 'cause here isn't where I wanna be_. Stiles hangs up his phone as Derek climbs through the window. _And satisfaction feels like a distant memory_.

“Dude, how long were you out there?” Stiles asks.

“Not long,” Derek replies, refusing to make eye contact with Stiles, and instead glaring at Isaac.

“Ahh, I see,” Stiles says. “And how come you didn’t notice that Isaac took your phone, Mr. Born-Werewolf?”

“I guess he’s gotten good at being sneaky, too,” Derek says, still giving Isaac the death-glare.

Stiles figures he has about 3 seconds before Derek’s eyes go blue, so he decides it’s time to intervene.

“So now that you’re here, are you sticking around? We have junk food and Netflix!” Stiles says.

Derek quickly deescalates from growly to grumbly, and sits on one end of the couch. Stiles sits next to him and the four of them sink into a comfortable silence as they become absorbed in whatever Scott has put on.

Stiles doesn’t really notice, he’s mostly just trying to stay awake.

Derek doesn’t really stay over that often, but it’s happened enough that he’s become like a security blanket to Stiles. Somehow his brain has come to associate Derek’s presence with sleep, so now mere proximity with Derek has Stiles feeling tired and trying not to drift off.

He fails. His only comfort is that he’s not the only one who fails. Stiles is woken up by his head falling off of Derek’s shoulder after Derek jerks awake. What woke Derek up was Melissa coming home.

Stiles is about to apologize, but he doesn’t actually know what he’s apologizing for. How many times has he fallen asleep in the McCall house before? That’s when he notices that Scott and Isaac have fallen asleep on each other, too, probably drooling all over each other by the looks of it. Melissa just shakes her head at her living room full of sleeping boys, and climbs the stairs to wash the hospital off of her and go to sleep.

Stiles decides that if she isn’t worrying about it, then neither will he. So stiles just shrugs, lays his head back of Derek’s shoulder, and goes to sleep.

 


	3. One For the Road

The pack may find Derek’s Constant Vigilance mildly annoying, but they all have to admit that it pays off in a big way from time to time. Like when Derek catches wind that a pack of Omegas is coming through.

Omega packs, Derek explains to them, are basically werewolf anarchists. They acknowledge no forms of pack authority and have very little loyalty. Some travel with other Omegas for added protection, while others just prefer to be around other like-minded wolves. They’re generally nomadic and membership very informal, with some wolves dropping out sporadically and then showing up again later. They aren’t very common, mostly because their chaotic nature and disregard for rules and laws tend to attract attention. If they happen to pass through an area with hunters or an established pack, the Omegas are usually wiped out pretty easily since they don’t work as a cohesive unit.

Scott doesn’t want to kill them all, he basically just wants to shoo them away from Beacon Hills. Stiles thinks that they should take a firmer approach, but he admits that Scott has had a tendency to be right lately.

Once they’ve gathered their troops, they head out to confront the Omegas. It starts out poorly, as there’s a few members who are more violent than others; they have to put down a few Omegas. But once they’ve dealt with the more vicious Omegas, it turns out to be simpler than they’d hoped to convince the remaining wolves to scatter.

It was fairly quick work, none of them died, and none of the humans were injured. That was enough of a success to warrant a minor Victory Party, so the Pack heads back to the Stilinski House to celebrate. 

Minor Victory Parties mainly consist of ordering a shitton of pizza to devour in someone’s living room.

“Hey Ms. Fields Medal,” Stiles asks Lydia as they all arrive at Stiles’s. “In your expert opinion, how many pizzas are in a shitton?”

“That depends, is this a standard shitton, or metric?” Lydia asks.

“Which one is bigger?” Scott asks.

“I’d say you’d need at least a dozen to constitute a shitton, but we probably won’t need more than 6 to feed all of us,” Lydia decides.

“Six pizzas it is. I’ll call it in,” Stiles agrees, going into the kitchen to make the call as everyone else settles in.

By the time Stiles gets back to the living room, all the good seats have been taken. Scott, Kira, and Isaac are on the couch playing Mario Kart, while Lydia and Malia have spread out on the love seat, with Malia braiding Lydia’s hair.

Lydia claims it’s to improve Malia’s dexterity since she’s still getting used to having fingers full time, but Stiles is pretty sure that she just likes it when people play with her hair.

Derek is in the lone armchair, which leaves Stiles to sit on the floor next to the coffee table. He’s in between Isaac’s end of the couch and Derek, and he mostly ends up punching Isaac in the leg as he consistently loses to both Kira and Scott.

When the pizzas come people shuffle around a bit, but mostly settle back into the same places.

Stiles is on his third slice of pizza when he realizes that the chair itself is empty now; Derek is sitting on the floor with his back against the chair. Stiles stops paying attention to who’s winning Mario Kart in favor of talking to Derek.

They talk more about Omega packs and what happened in the fight earlier that night. They talk about Omegas in general and pack dynamics. They talk about how Mario Kart is not Isaac’s game at all. They talk about how awesome pizza is, and debate whether or not cheese-stuffed-crust is mankind’s greatest achievement (it definitely is, no matter what Derek tries to say).

By the time they start paying attention to the rest of the party again, Kira is playing Lydia and Malia, while Scott plays with Isaac’s hair. Stiles feels like he missed something, but he doesn’t particularly care.

The party is broken up when Melissa calls Scott (Scott’s phone just vibrates when he gets a call; no hacked ringtone for him. Stiles is still plotting his revenge), to make sure that he and Isaac are alright. She’s gotten home from her shift and neither of them are at home. Apparently in all of the excitement neither of them remembered to text her about what was going on.

It would also seem that they lost track of time in a big way. If Melissa is home, then it won’t be long before Stiles’s dad gets off of work and comes home, too.

It also means that the sun is probably rising. How did they miss that one?

“I guess we gotta go, man,” Scott says apologetically. He gives Stiles a hug before heading towards the door. “See you later.”

“Yeah, See ya,” Stiles replies. “Lydia, you probably oughta take Malia back home, too.”

“Oh, can I ride with you?” Kira asks Lydia. “I came with Scott, but you’re headed my way.”

“Sure, sweetie. Let’s go,” Lydia answers, gathering her things. “Goodbye boys,” she calls over her shoulder as the girls leave.

“Just you and me now,” Stiles tells Derek with a grin. “You know what that means.

The blank look on Derek’s face says that he clearly does not know what that means.

“You’re stuck helping me with cleanup.”

“Ah, of course,” Derek says, picking up a balled-up paper towel and throwing it at Stiles’s face.

It doesn’t take too long to get things cleaned up between the two of them. Derek is about to leave when Stiles stops him, again.

“Wait, wait!” He says, grabbing a pizza box. “Take some of the leftovers with you. We do not need this much pizza in the house.”

“I really don’t need all of that at my place either, Stiles,” Derek says. “Especially the stuffed crust.”

“Neither does my Dad!” Stiles turns his best pleading eyes on Derek, hoping to elicit some pity. He knows he doesn’t hold a candle to Scott’s puppy dog eyes, but apparently it’s enough, because Derek sighs in defeat and grabs a slice from the box.

“Fine, one for the road,” He says before finally leaving. “Good night, Stiles.”

“More like good morning, really.”

Stiles is so exhausted from the fight and then staying up till dawn that he flops down onto the couch and almost falls asleep right there, until he heard the door open and his father comes in.

“Rough night?” His dad asks, seeing him.

“Not too bad, we’ve definitely had a lot worse,” Stiles replies, trying to stifle a yawn.

“Alright, I’ll let you get some sleep then,” his dad says before heading towards the kitchen.

“Stay away from the stuffed crust!” He warns, before closing his eyes, hoping to be dead to the world for at least 12 hours.

Maybe even a shitton of hours.


	4. Arabella

So Malia Tate is a Hale. Lydia told them not long after they got rid of the nogitsune; she didn’t want to be the only one who knew. She had accepted Scott as her Alpha, and she had accepted that anything she told Scott would make to Stiles sooner or later, so she told the two of them.

They decided to keep it between the three of them for the time being. Malia had had enough upheaval recently, the poor girl didn’t need one more shitty thing on her plate to deal with. It doesn’t get much shittier than finding out that your biological father is actually Peter Fucking Hale.

Not telling Peter was a no-brainer to them. The man was unstable at best; there was no telling what he would do if he found out.

Keeping it from Derek was a bit harder, but they agreed that it was for the best.

They didn’t want to lie to him, but Derek still had loyalty to his psychotic uncle, and they couldn’t trust that Derek wouldn’t tell Peter.

In addition to not telling anyone else the truth, they also had to try and keep the Hales away from Malia the best they could while also integrating Malia into the Pack.

It wasn’t easy, but they managed to limit contact. When Derek asked if Scott wanted any help with training Malia to control the shift, they told him that they didn’t want to overwhelm her with too many new people telling her things; she trusted Scott and Stiles the most, so they were helping her figure her abilities out, and they were telling Mr. Tate that they were tutoring her to help her get up to grade level. Derek and Malia were never alone with each other, they only saw each other when the whole pack was there.

Malia had never even met Peter. This was due to some warning Malia about how dangerous Peter was, in addition to a little extra excluding Peter from Pack meetings. This didn’t even look suspicious, since it was common knowledge that no one trusted Peter anyway.

It all goes smoothly, for a little while.

Then Malia starts asking questions.

“So do you think my Mom was a coyote?” She asks one day while they’re training.

“Um, we don’t know. Maybe?” Stiles tells her. “Did she ever say anything to you that would make you think she was?”

“Not that I can remember, but there’s a lot that I can’t remember,” Malia says, softly. “I’ve tried dropping hints to my Dad to try and figure out if he knows anything, but he hasn’t let on anything yet.”

“Unfortunately, without knowing more about your Mom’s history, we really can’t say,” Scott says. They’ve been trying not to lie to her too much, but that much is true, at least; they still don’t know how she ended up as a coyote if her father was a wolf.

“I’ve been trying to remember…I mean, it has to be genetic, right?” Malia reasons. “I would remember if I was bitten. I would remember if I was attacked. My parents would have known if something like that had happened, right?”

“That would make sense, but it’s hard to really say for sure,” Stiles says. “We could ask Derek what he knows.”

“Those are your two favorite answers, aren’t they?” Malia says snidely. “ _I don’t know_ and _Let’s Ask Derek_. Or Chris. Or Peter. Maybe I should be training with them.”

Stiles exchanges a look with Scott, trying to figure out something to say to appease her & calm her down. She’s showing signs that she’s starting to unravel. She gets like this sometimes; she was in Echo House for a reason, after all. When things are going well, it’s easy to forget that she spent the better part of a decade on four legs. But then, other times, it’s plain to see how much everything that’s happened still weighs on her.

Malia is good at making it look like she’s coping much better than she actually is.

That must be a Hale trait.

***

When Stiles gets home from Scott’s after “tutoring” Malia, Derek is in his room, on his computer.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to just give you a copy of the Bestiary?” Stiles asks him as he flops down onto his bed.

“How did training go?” Derek asks, ignoring Stiles’s question.

“Alright. I’m supposed to ask you about were-genetics,” Stiles says, putting his hands over his eyes. They meet with Malia after lacrosse practice, which is already after school. It’s been a long day, and Stiles is exhausted.

“Oh? Fire away,” Derek says.

“Do you think it would be possible for two non-weres to have a were-baby? Like, if they were carriers or something? Also, do you know if it’s a dominant or recessive trait?”

“Um—,” Derek starts, but Stiles cuts him off, sitting up in bed.

“Also, what’s the likelihood of two werewolves having a human baby? Could that happen, too? Or what if they baby is something completely from either of the parents like how Jackson got bitten by a wolf but then turned into a kanima. Could a werewolf make a werecoyote without a coyote being involved at all?”

“Slow down Stiles, that’s a lot of questions all at once. Have you been saving those up or something?” Derek asks with a laugh.

Derek has a nice laugh. Stiles does _not_ say that out loud.

“I know there’s lots of things in the Bestiary that you don’t know about, but are there things that you know that aren’t in the Bestiary?” Stiles can’t resist asking one more question.

“Yeah, maybe one or two things,” Derek answers, clearly trying to be modest.

Stiles lays back down, his head hitting the pillow with a soft _whump_ noise. “If you ever feel like typing anything out, you should add what you know in there.”

“If you insist,” Derek says, getting up from the computer and going over to the bed. He lays down next to Stiles. “Now what were the questions you had for me again? One at a time this time?”

Stiles asks Derek every werewolf-genetics question he can think of, one at a time. Then Stiles moves onto every werewolf-related question he’s ever had. He asks about Kitsunes and Banshees.

“I can go if you want, you can ask me more questions another time,” Derek offers after Stiles yawns a particularly wide yawn. “Any time, really.”

“Nah, we can just take a nap and finish later,” Stiles says sleepily, patting Derek on the arm without even looking at him.

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Derek says.

They don’t finish later. Stiles assumed his father would wake them up when he got home, at least.

But he didn’t.

They sleep soundly through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: apparently one meaning of the name "Arabella" is "An answered prayer." Take that as you will.


	5. I Want it All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First of the Derek chapters! And it's the shortest one thus far.

Derek acknowledged that the amount of time he spent in Stiles’s bedroom was probably a little weird. Especially considering how frequently he woke up there. And how many times he’d gone in knowing that Stiles wasn’t home.

But to be fair, it wasn’t completely one-sided. Derek may have started it, but Stiles could break-and-enter with the best of them. Stiles would claim that it wasn’t breaking and entering since he had a key, but since he had stolen Derek’s key and made a copy of it in the first place, Derek didn’t really consider that a valid argument.

The point was, Derek would sometimes come home to find that Stiles was in his apartment. And Derek didn’t kick him out.

Sometimes he comes home to find Stiles baking in his kitchen, other times he’s just doing homework on the couch. He never knows when to expect it.

This time he shows up with groceries. It looks like it’s mostly junk food.

“I know you prefer to eat healthier and won’t eat most of this,” Stiles says, without pausing to greet Derek. “But I noticed you were running low on snacks at the last pack meeting. I figured we would need more. You never know when we’re all going to end up here next.”

“Did you bring any Coke?” Derek asks.

“Yes, there are several pounds of cocaine under the Doritos,” Stiles deadpans.

Derek just glares at him and opens the fridge to see both a two liter bottle and a pack of cans. He grabs a can and cracks it open, taking a long swig.

“So you’re not going to help me put all this away?” asks Stiles.

“Nope, you brought all this crap here, you have to deal with it,” Derek says even as he starts grabbing things from the bags and putting them in the cupboards.

He would say that he knows how he likes things arranged in his kitchen better anyway, but it would seem that Stiles has been paying attention. Everything is exactly where Derek would have put it himself.

“Is your Dad working tonight?” Derek asks, when they’ve put everything away. “Did you want to stay for a bit and eat something? We could watch a movie if you want.”

Stiles looks at his phone, Derek isn’t sure if he’s checking the time or his messages. “Nah, I’ve got to get back home. I’ve got this Chem project I need to work on.”

“Okay, I’ll see you later, I guess,” Derek says, trying not to sound too disappointed.

“Yeah, bye,” Stiles says, and he’s out the door.

Stiles never stays at Derek’s. He always makes some excuse to bail before it gets too late. Stiles never protests whenever Derek stays the night at his house, but he won’t sleep at Derek’s.

Derek has never asked him why. Maybe it’s related to his pillow, Derek wonders. Then he wonders if it would be weird if he told Stiles he could bring his pillow with him if he wanted to come over. It probably would be.

Derek isn’t actually hungry, and he doesn’t feel like staying up to watch a movie or read anything. So, he just goes to bed, alone, wondering how hard it would be to find out what kind pillow Stiles has.


	6. No.1 Party Anthem

Stiles was right about the snacks. It’s not long before the whole Pack, including a couple parents, is suddenly all gathered at Derek’s to deal with a new crisis. Even Danny was there. After Ethan told them Danny knew about werewolves, they had tried to get Danny to join the Pack. He had declined, with a promise to keep an eye out for anything particularly weird, but he still came to Pack movie nights on occasion.

He was there because he was the one who had brought the situation to their attention. He had seen a group of “suspicious” looking people loitering around the edge of the woods. Apparently living in Beacon Hills his whole life has made Danny good at spotting wolves.

One of the Omegas they had run out of town has returned with a vengeance. Literally. He recognized Chris Argent. It turns out the reason he was an Omega in the first place was because the Argents took out his pack.

When he saw Chris Argent in Beacon Hills, he didn’t just flee like they thought; he went to gather reinforcements.

They gather to try and formulate a plan of attack, but in the end their plan basically boils down to “Attack, try not to die.”

Or at least that’s Derek’s part in the plan. Scott and Chris keep exchanging looks that suggest they have something up their sleeves.

***

It turns out having the Sheriff on their team is a major boon for the Pack.

It also turns out that Derek was right about there being more to the plan.

Chris took out the Omega while the rest of their Pack fought the pack that the Omega had allied himself with. Once the Omega was dead, Deaton swooped in with Stiles’s Dad, and they had a long talk about exactly what would happen if they ever set foot in Beacon Hills again. Scott explained that they didn’t have any grudge against them, and that if they left peacefully they wouldn’t be pursued.

Stiles said that this was a big win for them, and thus it was grounds for a Major Victory Party. Which meant it was back to Derek’s loft again.

Major Victory Parties involved less food and more loud music and weird lights.

Danny stays, but Deaton, Chris and the Sherif don’t. Derek isn’t quite sure where Peter is, but he’s not there, so that’s a plus.

At first, Stiles is just dancing with Scott, but then when he sees Derek sitting on the couch, he comes over and grabs him by the hands, pulling him up off of the couch.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he says, excitedly, grinning ear to ear. “No sitting allowed! You gotta dance!” Stiles proclaims.

Derek just laughs and dances with everyone else for a while, until Stiles starts paying attention to someone else and Derek goes to sit down again.

Stiles is happy and is clearly having fun, but he doesn’t seem to be able to completely relax. Malia is there, though, and Derek has noticed that Stiles is always a little bit on edge if Malia is around. He heard that they had hooked up in the basement of Echo House, so he assumes it’s because of that, but Stiles acts weirder around Malia than he does around Lydia these days.

When Stiles sees that Derek is sitting again, he drags him up to dance again. It happens every time Derek tries to leave the “dance floor” or even stay still for more than a minute. When the rest of the pack catches on, it quickly turns into a game, and everyone is dragging Derek back to the dance floor, or even preventing him from leaving. Derek isn’t allowed to have a moment’s peace. Danny almost doesn’t let him go to the bathroom. When he comes out, Stiles is waiting outside the door.

“Just making sure you weren’t trying to escape out the window,” he says before pulling him back to where the Pack is dancing.

When Stiles heads into the kitchen he thinks he’s safe for a minute, but Malia catches him.

“Come on, it’s my turn to hold you hostage on the dance floor for a minute,” she says.

It’s one of the first things she’s ever said directly to him; he hasn’t had a lot of contact with her since she joined the Pack.

“So,” she starts. “What’s with Stiles always acting so weird around you?”

“What do you mean?” Derek asks her.

“Every time I see you around him, he’s always more nervous and jittery,” Malia explains. “And his heartbeat will never settle.”

“Oh I thought that was you,” Derek says. “He’s not usually like that with me, only when you’re around.”

“Well he’s not like that around me when it’s just us, or at school,” Malia pauses, coming to a realization. “Does that mean it’s both of us?”

“It seems like it, he only acts weirder when he’s around us together,” Derek tries to reason out. “But I don’t know why, I mean I assumed he was nervous around you because of what happened at Echo House.”

“Nah, that’s not it,” Malia says. “That wasn’t really a big deal, and we agreed it was a one-time thing. We were both pretty messed up at the time. I mean, we’re still kinda messed up, but everything was definitely way worse back there.”

“So, um, you’re doing better then? With everything?” Derek doesn’t really trust Malia, but that’s basically his default setting these days.

“Yeah, it can be a little bit frustrating sometimes. They seem to keep forgetting that I wasn’t actually raised by coyotes,” she says. “I keep telling them, I was raised by human parents, then I took a break from being a person for a little while, and now I’m back again.”

They’re interrupted by Stiles coming back from the kitchen. He claps a hand on each of their backs, getting their attention.

“You stopped moving! You are having a stationary conversation on the dance floor! That is definitely not allowed,” Stiles announces. “We are celebrating a victory. What is so important that you have to stop dancing to talk about it?”

“I was just telling Derek all about what happened in the basement of Echo House,” Malia says brightly, turning to him with a cheery smile. “How we made out, but didn’t get past second base.”

“Uh, I have to go pee now,” Stiles says, walking quickly in the other direction.

Malia laughs, and says, “That boy is far too easy to get a rise out of.” She grins, and it’s slightly vicious, and a little bit terrifying. The look on her face reminds Derek suddenly of Laura. She had the same wicked sense of humor, although hers was usually at Derek’s expense.

Derek laughs with her and finds himself trusting Malia just a little bit more.

***

The party starts winding down a little bit, and people get less vigilant about keeping Derek dancing. He’s talking with Scott and Isaac in the kitchen when Danny and Kira come say goodbye, followed directly by Lydia and Malia.

Isaac looks at the clock and says “I guess we better head home, too.” Scott nods and grabs his jacket, saying goodbye as they leave.

Then it’s just Derek, and Stiles who’s passed out asleep on the couch.

Derek kneels next to the couch and shakes Stiles’s shoulder softly to wake him up.

“Hmm? What? Why’d you wake me up?” Stiles asks softly.

“Party’s over, Stiles, everybody went home,” Derek tells him, voice barely a whisper. “I woke you up because you’d hate me in the morning if I left you on this couch.”

“Oh, time to go, too?” Stiles sits up, rubbing his eyes.

“No, Stiles, it’s nearly 4 am. You’re not going anywhere but to bed.”

“Everybody else left,” Stiles says defensively, before yawning.

“Nobody else left alone, and most of them are supernatural beings. You’re not driving,” Derek says, pulling him up and leading him towards bed.

“I think Danny counts, too,” Stiles mumbles as they walk, still half asleep. “Danny’s pretty magical.”

“That he is,” Derek agrees. He pulls back the covers on one side of the bed for Stiles to get in, and then walks around to the other side of the bed and gets in himself.

Stiles’s quiet voice comes from the other side of the bed, “Derek?”

“Yeah, Stiles?”

“Thanks,” is all he says.

“You’re welcome, Stiles. You’re always welcome.”

Stiles is already snoring.

 


	7. Mad Sounds

Waking up in Derek Hale’s bed in Derek Hale’s apartment next to Derek Hale himself is a disconcerting experience.

Although, it’s not nearly as disconcerting as the fucking look on Malia Tate’s face the next time he sees her.

“You look like you want to eat me,” Stiles says when he sees her at school on Monday morning. Her grin seems to take up her entire face. “Please don’t eat me.”

“Victory parties are fun. We should win things more often,” Malia says, as they walk down the hall towards their lockers.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” Stiles says, warily.

“Oh yes, I particularly enjoyed talking to Derek Hale,” she tells him, far too cheerily.

Stiles bangs his head against his locker, hoping to kill enough brain cells that he won’t have to deal with this shit anymore. Maybe if he’s lucky he’ll give himself a concussion. “I’m afraid to ask, what did you two say to each other?”

“Mostly we talked about how weird you are,” Malia says.

“Oh great,” Stiles says sarcastically. Although, it could have been much worse.

“And about how you’re always _particularly_ weird whenever you’re around both of us at the same time,” she continues. “We haven’t figured out why yet, but we will.”

This time when he hits his head on the locker, it’s an accident.

“You’re conspiring with Derek Hale, this can only end poorly,” Stiles tells her, trying to hide how legitimately concerned he is about it.

“Well I’m starting to wonder if it’s related to the fact that your heart starts pounding every time someone mentions Derek’s name,” she says. Then she leans in close to his ear and whispers, “Don’t forget, I can hear everything.”

She steps away, smiles at him, and then turns around and saunters away down the hallway.

***

Even freaking _Malia_ knows that he’s into Derek. This is getting out of hand. Especially since he can’t stop thinking about how nice it was to wake up next to Derek.

It was one thing when it was in Stiles’s room, but at Derek’s it just feels different. Maybe it’s because his dad isn’t going to just pop in over at Derek’s. Although, there is always the possibility of Peter showing up, which is disturbing.

Stiles decides that maybe he should talk to Derek, so after practice and tutoring with Malia, he texts Derek _Hey, are you home?_

 _No. I’m at your house._ Derek replies.

Well, that’s convenient.

He comes home to find Derek at his computer, typing away.

“Adding some more Valuable Hale Knowledge to the Bestiary?” Stiles asks as he drops his backpack to the floor.

“Yes,” Derek looks up and notices that Stiles has face-planted onto his bed, nose buried in his pillow. “Long day?”

“Mm-hmm,” comes the muffled reply. Stiles turns his head to face Derek, “Well, normal day, really. Normal amount of longness and boringness. I wasn’t really tired till I got home.”

“No?” Derek asks.

“I blame you for this,” Stiles accuses, narrowing his eyes.

“Me?” Derek says, indignantly. “How is this my fault?”

“I sleep around you too much. I think I’ve conditioned my body to want sleep every time I see you, now.”

“Oh,” Derek says. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost say Derek looks a little hurt, but that can’t be it. “So you think we shouldn’t sleep with each other so much?”

Stiles decides to ignore the phrasing, since he knows what Derek means. “No! I mean we should do more awake things together instead of just sleeping together. I mean. You know what I mean.”

Derek nods, thinking it over.

“Like, when we first met, whenever we saw each other something terrible was happening, so it was like Derek is here! Danger!” Stiles tries to explain without gesticulating too much, but he mostly fails. “But now, it’s like, Derek’s here. It must be time for sleep. Which is better than before, but still not great. So we should hang out in more non-life-threatening non-sleeping contexts.”

“Okay,” Derek says. “When?”

Stiles shrugs, “Whenever, I guess.”

“Like, now?” Derek asks, he still seems a little unsure of the situation.

“No, not now,” Stiles says. “It’s been a long day, so now we’re going to take a nap.”

“This seems counterproductive,” Derek protests, but he’s smiling, and he comes over to the bed and lays down.

“Shhh,” Stiles whispers, patting Derek’s face. “We’ll work on it tomorrow. It’s naptime.”


	8. Fireside

Stiles and Derek start texting each other more regularly, making plans to hang out apart from the Pack. It mostly involves movies and video games and food.

They go to each other’s places, and frequently fall asleep together.

And then Derek disappears a little bit.

He doesn’t answer and of Stiles’s texts (or snapchats—Stiles had bullied him into getting the app), Derek isn’t at his apartment when Stiles stops by after school, and he isn’t in Stiles’s room when he goes home.

Derek’s default mood is generally grumpy—or at least it used to be, he’d been getting better and better lately, Stiles had hoped that some of that was because of him. But Derek was still prone to sink into moods that were darker than usual.

If you knew anything about Derek, the cause wasn’t too hard to figure out.

Back around the time when he and Scott had first met Derek, Stiles had snuck into his father’s files and made copies of everything that was even remotely Hale-related. It had involved some moderate hacking and not a little bit of illegal activity, but he now has a pretty solid amount of background information on the Hales.

He pulls it up from a folder within a folder all filed under an icon labelled “World History.” He opens up a few files before finding the right one. And there it is, Talia Hale’s date of birth is listed as today. Stiles has a pretty good idea of where Derek might have gone on his mother’s birthday.

***

It’s been awhile since Stiles has been out to the Hale house; it looks even worse than he remembers it.

Sure enough, there’s Derek’s car, and he can see what looks like the light of a fire in the backyard, closer to the treeline.

It’s not an uncontrolled blaze, just a small campfire really. It’s pleasantly warm when he walks up to it, sitting down on a log next to Derek, who’s just staring into the flames, probably has been for hours.

Stiles doesn’t say anything at first, just sits there next to Derek, staring into the flames, and occasionally at Derek.

Stiles doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there when he finally breaks the silence.

“There’s something I think I need to tell you,” he starts. “You know I trust you, right?”

Derek nods slightly, but still doesn’t look at Stiles.

“Good, because I do. So I’m trusting you not to tell anyone about this. No one else can know. Only Lydia, Scott, and I know right now. Not even Malia knows.” Derek looks up at the mention of Malia. He quirks an eyebrow, questioning, but doesn’t speak.

“She’s your cousin. She’s Peter’s daughter. He can’t find out,” Stiles says in a rush, eager to get it out once he’s started.

And now it’s out.

Derek stands up, and runs his hands through his hair. “Wow, that is not what I thought you were going to say.”

“What did you think I was going to say?” Stiles asks.

“I don’t know, just not that,” Derek says, pacing next to the fire.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you,” Stiles says, looking down again.

“No. No, I’m glad you told me,” Derek reassures him. “I’m just not sure what to do with this information. How long have you known? How do you know in the first place?”

Stiles cringes a little bit, this was the question he had been dreading. “Lydia and Allison found out first. Something about Lydia hearing something from your mother’s claws, and a memory that she took from Peter or something? Peter knows he has a child, apparently, but he doesn’t know it’s Malia,” Stiles says. “Lydia told us after we lost Allison. She wanted to make sure she wasn’t the only one who knew.”

“Malia’s a Hale,” Derek says. “And we’re not telling Peter, and we’re not telling Malia.”

“Um, yeah, that’s about it,” Stiles says, a bit uneasy. He can’t read Derek right now, can’t tell how he’s handling the news. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Derek nods. “I don’t trust Peter, and I don’t know that it’s a good idea to tell Malia ‘Welcome to the Hale family, congratulations, you have a bunch of dead werewolf relatives.’”

Stiles laughs, despite himself. “Yeah, that was about our reasoning, too. Now I just have to tell Scott and Lydia that I spilled the beans to you.”

“You can worry about that in the morning,” Derek tells him, kicking dirt over the fire to put it out. “Right now we should go in and get some sleep before we freeze out here.”

“In there?” Stiles asks, pointing at the shell of a house that Derek is walking towards. “Is that even safe?”

“Would you rather sleep in your car? Or drive all the way back to town?” Derek asks, looking back at Stiles, one eyebrow raised skeptically.

“Um, maybe?”

“Come on, upstairs might not be stable, but the ground floor is perfectly safe,” Derek reassures him. “There’s a couch. It’s not much, but it’s bigger than your backseat.”

Stiles grumbles, but follows Derek inside anyway.

The old couch is significantly smaller than any bed they’ve shared before, so instead of sleeping next to each other, they ended up curled together, with Derek’s arm around Stiles’s shoulders, and Stiles curled into Derek’s chest.

It’s a little bit awkward, but it really should be more awkward than it is. Instead, Stiles mostly finds it cozy, even if he is positive that Derek can feel his heart about to beat out of its chest.

“You okay?” Derek asks, when they’re settled in.

“Yeah, I just need you to tell me one more time that it wasn’t a bad thing that I told you about Malia,” Stiles says.

Derek takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly. “I’m glad you told me. I’m still processing it all, but it’s good that I know. Alright?”

Stiles nods, “Alright.”

“Now go to sleep, Stiles.”

And he does.


	9. Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?

Derek is asleep when his phone starts ringing. Stiles’s name comes up on the screen. It’s after 3 am, and there’s only two reasons why Stiles ever calls instead of texting. One of those reasons is if it’s an emergency, so Derek rubs his eyes and answers the phone.

“Hello?” He says.

“DEREEEEEK! Derek HALE!” Stiles shouts on the other end of the line.

This is clearly not an emergency call. This is the other kind of phone call.

“Stiles, are you okay?” Derek asks, just to make sure.

“Yeah! I’m fine I’m grrrrrrrrrr-eat!” Stiles exclaims. Derek thinks he’s trying to impersonate Tony the Tiger, but he isn’t quite sure. “We had a killer midterm in Chem today, but now it’s over, and we’re celebrating!”

“Who’s we?”

“Scott and Isaac and me. Danny was here earlier, but he left,” Derek can practically hear him pouting through the phone.

“Stiles, how drunk are you? Do you need me to come pick you up?” Derek asks, concerned.

“I’m not drunk! I only had a li’l to drink, promise,” Stiles tells him.

“Right, and what else have you had recently?” Derek generally trusts Stiles, but that’s sober Stiles. Intoxicated Stiles is a completely different animal.

“I was studying alllllll night,” Stiles explains. “So I added some extra-extra caffeination to my routine.”

“Caffeination? As in coffee, right?” Derek asks, skeptically.

“Yep! Second cup of coffee,” Stiles replies. “And a little extra Adderall to help me through the exam.”

“Stiles!” Derek scolds him. If he were in the same room, this is probably where Derek would hit him in the back of the head for being an idiot.

“Only an extra half a pill!” Stiles protests. “That’s just 5 milligrams, that’s nothing!”

“So sleep deprivation, plus extra coffee, plus extra amphetamines, plus ‘just a little bit’ of alcohol?” Derek says, listing everything off. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re totally fine.”

Stiles groans. “Ughh, you’re the worst. I don’t know why I even called you in the first place.”

“Easy, I know that one,” Derek says. “You drunk dialed me. Because you’re drunk, and possibly high.”

“I called you because I missed you and I wanted to tell you that you smell really good and I wish you were here because Scott and Isaac don’t smell as nice as you do and now you’re being mean and I don’t want to tell you any of those things anymore,” Stiles says, all in one breath.

“Too late, now you’ve told me.”

“Fuck dammit, you’re right, maybe I am a little too far gone. Why aren’t you here to keep be from doing dumb shit like drunk dialing werewolves?” Stiles says, petulantly.

“Who exactly would you be drunk dialing if I were there with you?”

“No one,” Stiles sighs. “If you were here we’d probably be asleep already.”

Derek is about to respond when he hears Scott in the distance on Stiles’s end.

“Stiles! Stop having phone sex with Derek and get your ass over here to help us finish off this shit that Danny left behind!”

“Shut up, Scott!” Stiles shouts back. “You’re not the boss of me!”

“Obey your Alpha!” Isaac shouts back.

“I gotta go, Derek,” Stiles says.

“Stiles, next time, just text me,” Derek says, with a yawn.

“Will do, man, get some sleep,” Stiles tells him before hanging up.

Derek puts his phone back on his bedside table and rolls over. Even as he’s trying to fall asleep again, he hears his phone buzzing with incoming texts. He smiles to himself, knowing it’s Stiles, but leaves it. He’ll read them in the morning. 


	10. Snap Out of It

Peter doesn’t really live with Derek, but he does spend and awful lot of time in his apartment, sometimes. Peter comes and goes as he pleases. Derek isn’t really sure where his uncle goes and what he does when he goes there, and he’d like to keep it that way.

The less time Derek spends thinking about Peter, the better.

Peter has been at Derek’s apartment less and less lately, but Derek isn’t really sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing at this point.

Peter’s been absent for a few days, but now he’s suddenly barging into the apartment, where Derek is reading on the couch.

“Are you absolutely certain that you haven’t pissed off any witches recently?” Peter asks, without preamble.

“Witches? Um, no, I can’t say I’ve had contact with any witches lately,” Derek says. The closest he’s gotten is probably the girl who works at the supermarket with all the jangly charms who keeps glaring at him when he’s trying to buy produce. He’s pretty sure she doesn’t have much firepower though. “Where is this coming from? Has someone made a threat? Is everyone in the pack alright?”

“Is everyone alright? Look at yourself!” Peter throws back indignantly.

Derek looks down at himself, then back up at Peter, and shrugs. What’s wrong with him?

“You’re practically wearing pastels! You’re reading a book that isn’t a bestiary! Just last week I caught you _singing in the shower_!” Peter practically hisses the last part.

“Wait, let me get this straight: You think I was cursed by a witch, because I like to sing in the shower?” Derek says slowly, wondering how far off the deep end his uncle has gone.

“A curse, a charm, possibly a love spell of some sort,” Peter says as he starts pacing. “I’m not quite sure yet, but whatever it is, it can’t be good news for us.

Derek realizes what’s going on, and feels a laugh burble up out of him before he can stop it.

Peter stops pacing to gawk at him.

“Peter, I haven’t been cursed by a witch, I’ve just _happy_ lately. This is a good thing,” Derek tells him.

Peter throws his arms up in the air, “You’re hopeless!” he calls out as he leaves the apartment.

The next day, Derek comes home to find Peter cooking in his kitchen. He’s talking to Cora on speakerphone as he moves around the kitchen. They’re speaking to each other in Spanish, as they always do lately when they talk on the phone. Derek doesn’t really speak much Spanish, and they’re going way too fast for him to utilize what little he does know. All he manages to catch is his own name and the word _idiota_. This can’t mean good things for him.

***

Cora flies in a few days later. Derek goes to pick her up from the airport, and he hugs her as soon as he sees her. He just barely resists the urge to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder like she’s still ten years old.

“It’s even worse than I thought,” Cora says, clearly worried.

“Peter doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Derek tells her. “I haven’t pissed off any nature spirits or been hypnotized or cursed by any witches or whatever theory he’s moved onto now. I’m okay, I promise.” He takes her carryon from her and they start walking through the airport.

“That’s just it,” Cora protests. “You’re never okay, you’re never even fine! Last time I saw you, you were barely holding it together.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Yes! You’re so happy I can smell it,” She wrinkles her nose in distaste, even though Derek knows she’s exaggerating. “You’re practically oozing contentment, and it’s gross and weird and I want it to stop.”

“Fine, you want me to be surly?” Derek says, he stops walking and crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t like how much you’ve been talking to Peter lately. He clearly has too much influence over you if a single phone call can get you to hop on a plane back to Beacon Hills. You know he’s not mentally stable, and you need to be more careful or he’ll start manipulating you.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Cora asks, as they start walking again. “Why do you think I’m here? Someone has to keep an eye on Peter and make sure he doesn’t go off the rails again. If you’re out of commission, then who’s going to keep him in check? Scott McCall? Stiles? The banshee?”

“Her name is Lydia, and you know it,” Derek says. They’re out of the airport now, walking to Derek’s car. “The Pack is perfectly capable of handling Peter if we need to.”

“ _The Pack,_ ” Cora repeats, rolling her eyes. “Your pack is like the Island of Misfit Toys. It has more humans than wolves at this point. Plus, rumor has it you added a coyote to your ranks.”

“Did Peter tell you that?” Derek says, suddenly having an interesting thought.

“No, I heard on facebook. I’m still a part of that massive Pack group message, remember?” She reminds him.

“Oh, right, that,” Derek says, nodding, as they get into the car. Derek puts the car into gear, and makes a decision. “Speaking of Malia, I have something I need to tell you.”

***

Derek tells her what he found out from Stiles (And later, Lydia, who filled him in on the rest of the story) as they drive out to the Tate house.

He hadn’t told Malia they were coming, but school’s over by now, so he knows she’s in there. Malia would have heard the car pulling up from a mile off, so by the time they’re in view of the front door, Malia’s already out on the porch waiting for them.

Stiles’s Jeep is in the driveway, too, but he and Scott have decided to stay inside, even if they are peering out the window to see what’s going on.

“Malia,” Derek says as he gets out of the car. “This is my little sister Cora. She’s in town for a little bit from South America, and she wanted to meet you while she’s here.”

“Me?” Malia asks, clearly a little thrown by them suddenly showing up. “Because I’m Pack? Or because I’m a werecoyote?”

Cora looks a little dazed as she walks up to Malia for the first time. They’re about the same height, close to the same age, and this is the first time they’ve ever laid eye on one another.

Cora wraps her arms around Malia in a tight hug, and buries her nose in Malia’s hair. “Because you’re family,” she whispers faintly.

Derek can hear that Cora’s started crying. Malia turns her eyes towards Derek as she tries to piece together what’s going on. He can see the moment she gets it. Malia tightens her arms around Cora, and a tear rolls down her cheek.

Malia is blunt and awkward and not sentimental in the least, but here she is crying in her driveway while hugging perfect stranger.

They had all lost so much. Cora and Malia should have known each other since they were babies, should have grown up playing together. They were still teenagers, they shouldn’t have spent half of their lives running from the ghosts of their past.

Derek looked at the window, where Scott and Stiles weren’t even trying to hide that they were watching.

In a few minutes, they were going to go inside and talk, and sort everything out. In about half an hour, Cora was going to catch Derek and Stiles sharing another significant look and realize exactly what kind of “spell” Derek was under. She was going to be annoyed that she had flown all this way for nothing for about half a second, but then she was going to look at Malia again and decide it was more than worth it. She might even extend her stay.

A few hours after that she would go back to Derek’s apartment with Derek and Stiles, and they would talk more about the fact that they would be keeping what they knew from Peter, and then Cora would tease Derek about Stiles when Stiles got up to the bathroom, and Derek would pretend not to know what she was talking about, despite the fact that Stiles was going to stay the night in Derek’s room.

But for now, Cora was going to hug her cousin. 


	11. Knee Socks

Derek is doing his rounds to make sure that everyone in the pack is safe. He’s been slacking a bit lately, and he wants to get back in the habit of keeping an eye on everything, which is why he stubbornly continues running all around Beacon Hills, even though it’s pouring outside. By the time he reaches Stiles’s house it’s nearly midnight, and he’s soaked through. Januarys in Beacon Hills aren’t nearly as bad as Januarys in New York were, but it’s still January, and Derek is cold.

Derek isn’t sure if he wants to go in or if he just wants to run home as fast as he can and get into some dry clothes, but the Sheriff’s car isn’t in the driveway, and the lights in the living room are on, so Derek decides to go in, if only to say hi. Maybe Stiles wants some company.

Derek knocks on the front door, and then hears an approaching pattern of footsteps that’s weird even for Stiles. When he opens the door, he’s wearing a polo that doesn’t seem to fit him right, Mets themed boxers, and what look like blue baseball socks, pulled all the way up so they reach his knees. He’s holding a TV remote in one hand, and what looks like a bright red slushie in the other.

“Derek? I didn’t know you were coming over tonight,” Stiles says, he sounds a little breathless. As Stiles steps back to let Derek through the door, Derek realizes that the reason the footsteps sounded so weird was because Stiles was definitely doing sock slides down the hallway just before he got there. “Um, it’s laundry day. Or, laundry night I guess.”

“Right,” Derek says, choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He can hear the TV in the other room, it sounds like he’s got a game on, but he can’t tell what sport. Derek glances back at Stiles’s boxers, then asks. “You haven’t got a Met’s game on in January, have you?”

“No, it’s the Rangers. But I’m still supporting New York so it totally counts!” Stiles says as they walk into the living room where Derek can see it is indeed a Hockey game playing on the TV.

Derek is awkwardly hovering in the middle of the room, and Stiles is about to tell him to sit down already when he realizes that he’s not sitting down because he’s soaking wet.

“I’m going to go check on the laundry to see if it’s done yet. Hopefully I’ll have some dry clothes to offer you. At least I know there’s clean towels in the closet,” Stiles tells him as he leaves and heads towards the laundry room.

Derek takes off his boots and his socks, which are so sodden they were making squelching noises every time he took a step.

“Towels are in the closet at the top of the stairs, right?” Derek calls out, as he heads towards the stairs.

“Yeah!” Stiles answers. “I don’t think there’s anything too embarrassing in _that_ closet,” Stiles mutters, apparently forgetting that he’s not out of range for Derek’s ears.

Once Derek gets a towel, he takes off his wet shirt and dries off his torso and arms. Stiles comes back into the living room carrying with him a t-shirt and sweatpants. Derek takes them from, handing Stiles his wet shirt, and goes into the bathroom to change and dry off some more.

When he gets back to the living room, Stiles is sitting on the couch watching the game. As soon as Derek sits down next to him, Stiles starts talking a mile a minute about what’s been going on in the game. Derek keeps trying to focus on what Stiles is saying, to hear the words, but he fails because he can’t stop getting distracted by Stiles’s tongue. It’s been turned bright red by whatever it is Stiles has been drinking, and Derek can’t help but watch it as he talks.

Apparently he manages to nod in all the right places, though, because Stiles doesn’t seem to notice.

When the phone rings a few minutes later, it’s not a cell phone, but the Stilinski landline. The phone is on the end table next to Derek.

“Who still calls that number?” Derek asks, as he leans over to look at the caller ID. It just says “UNAVAILABLE.”

“It’s Scott’s Mom,” Stiles says as he reaches for the phone, leaning over Derek.

“Stiles?” says Melissa McCall’s tinny voice over the line.

“Yep, and how are this fine evening, Nurse McCall? Is everything alright at the hospital?” Stiles asks in an exaggerated voice.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, Stiles, I’m just checking in. I just talked to Scott and Isaac,” She tells him. “Everything alright with you over there? You know you’re welcome to go over to my house if your power goes out or anything.”

“Nah, it’s all good. I haven’t seen much lightning or anything, just a lot of rain. We’re all good over here,” Stiles says, then cringes slightly.

“We? Who else is over there?” Melissa asks.

“Hi, Mrs. McCall,” Derek says, loud enough for her to hear.

“Hi, Derek,” She says back, then she just sighs. “You boys stay safe, okay? Don’t go running around out in this storm chasing trouble.”

“Okay, we promise to be good,” Stiles reassures her, smiling. “You stay safe, too.”

They say goodbye and hang up. Derek can’t help but smile on the goofy grin on Stiles’s face.

“What?” Stiles asks when he notices Derek smiling at him. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Derek says. “That drink has turned your whole mouth red.”

Stiles starts wiping at his mouth as if that’s going to help anything. It doesn’t. At all. All it does is give Derek an excuse to stare at Stiles’s mouth and his fingers. It’s all very distracting.

Before Stiles notices anything, they’re both distracted by the announcer on the television yelling about a goal being scored.

“The game’s almost over,” Stiles says. He almost sounds a little sad, a little hollow. “What are we going to do then?”

“I don’t know, I guess we’ll go to sleep,” Derek replies softly. “It is getting late.”

Stiles just nods.

They talk all the time, but there’s so many things they don’t ever say.

Like right now, when they’re both pointedly Not Mentioning the fact that they’re wearing each other’s clothes. Derek recognizes the shirt that Stiles is wearing as one that Laura bought for him years ago. It isn’t quite his style, so he never wore it very much. Derek doesn’t remember lending it to Stiles, and he doesn’t think Stiles stole it from him, either. It’s possible he left it here once, but he doesn’t remember the last time he wore it.  
Stiles would know where he got it, but Derek doesn’t ask.

When the game is over they head upstairs to Stiles’s room, but just as they’re about to climb into bed, the buzzer for the dryer goes off downstairs.

Stiles sighs and hangs his head, “I have to finish dealing with the laundry,” he says.

“Just leave it,” Derek says, plaintively. “It’ll still be there in the morning.”

“It’ll be a mess by then,” Stiles says, shaking his head. “I’ll be right back.”

Stiles left his phone behind, and Derek picks it up, remembering the first time he had gotten a text from a contact called _Stiles_. Even back then Stiles had been far too crafty for a human. He had managed to steal Derek’s phone, input his number and Scott’s, and get Derek’s number, all without Derek noticing until Stiles had contacted him.

Derek makes a decision, clicks through a few things on Stiles’s phone until he finds what he’s looking for, and then puts it back where Stiles left it. By the time Stiles gets back upstairs, Derek is already lying on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling.

Stiles has brought a hamper of warm, freshly dried, laundry with him that smells wonderful. He sets it on the floor over in the corner and comes over to the bed.

When Stiles gets into bed, Derek wraps his arms around him, and Stiles settles in with a yawn. Any small step that happens between them happens infuriatingly slowly. They've been at this for months now, and it’s only been since his mother’s birthday that they graduated from sleeping next to each other in the same bed to sleeping with non-incidental touching.

That’s right, they cuddle now. Because Derek Hale likes to cuddle, dammit.

They sleep, and they cuddle, and that’s it. Regardless of what anyone’s friends or anyone’s sister has tried to imply, that’s as far as it has ever gone. It’s like their whole lives are a giant game of gay chicken, and they’re both really fucking chicken, because instead of crashing into each other, they’re both standing still, stagnant, refusing to move forward for fear that the other one will be sent running.

He wants to make a move, he really does, but at this moment, all he wants is to sleep. So he holds Stiles a little bit closer and closes his eyes, hoping he hasn't made the wrong choice tonight.


	12. I Wanna Be Yours

Derek wakes up the next morning all wrapped up with Stiles. His fingers are tangled in Stiles’s hair. Stiles has his head tucked into the crook of Derek’s neck, and Derek can feel when Stiles exhales against his skin. The room still smells slightly like laundry detergent. They’re cozy, in their own little world.

It would almost be perfect, but then the sound of someone clearing their throat shatters the illusion. The Sheriff is standing just inside the bedroom door, with a cup of coffee in his hand. He’s still wearing his uniform, which is slightly terrifying, no matter how many times Stiles claims that his Dad doesn’t hate him anymore.

“Stiles has to get up for school soon,” the Sheriff tells him, sternly. “I was just going to bring him some coffee before I head to sleep.”

He doesn’t want to, but Derek lets go of Stiles and sits up, reaching towards the Sheriff, who hands him the cup of coffee. The movement wakes up Stiles, who yawns and stretches sleepily.

Stiles does not look happy to realize that his Dad is in the room. Derek just hands the coffee off to Stiles in an attempt to placate him.

“We fell asleep,” Stiles mutters into the mug.

“Yes, we did,” Derek agrees, wondering what the point of stating the obvious is, even if it’s only for his father’s benefit.

“I’m going to go to sleep now,” the Sheriff says from the doorway, clearly exhausted. He points at Stiles. “And you, are going to school,” the he turns to Derek. “And you are not going to be here when I wake up.”

Derek says “Yes, sir.” But Stiles just nods before his Dad leaves the room, pointedly not closing the door behind him.

“Don’t you usually bail before now?” Stiles asks, setting down his coffee beside his bed.

Derek just shrugs, “I guess I was tired.” Derek knows he should probably say that he’s sorry for not leaving earlier, but he's been trying to make a habit lately of not apologizing for things that he’s not actually sorry for.

“Do you want me to leave now?” Derek asks. “Or do you want me to go make breakfast?”

“If you make me an omelet I promise to love you forever,” Stiles says, his face planted in his pillow, already half asleep again.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Derek says with a soft chuckle as he goes downstairs to make them both omelets.

***

Derek knows that after school Stiles is heading over to Scott’s to study with Scott and Isaac. He also knows that it will probably take about ten minutes before “studying” devolves into playing video games, so he figures he won’t be interrupting anything too important if he heads over there.

He calls Stiles anyway, just to double check. When Stiles picks up his phone, he’s in the middle of saying “…well it had to have been one of you!”

“Stiles?” Derek says.

“Hey Derek, sorry, I’m just yelling at these assholes over here. What’s up?”

“I was just about to head over to Scott’s, I just wanted to make sure you guys weren’t still busy studying,” Derek says. “What are you yelling at them about?”

“Ah, nothing, I think one of them just changed my ringtone again,” Stiles says. “Neither of them will cop to it this time, though. We’re definitely not doing anything productive anymore.”

“Oh, well, I’ll see you in a few minutes, then,” Derek says before they hang up.

When Derek gets there, they’re still arguing about it, while they play. It looks like they’re playing Wii Tennis. They’ve cut back on violent video games since their real lives got so violent.

“What’s the problem now?” Derek ask as he comes in.

“Stiles is accusing us of trying to sabotage him by attacking his ringtone again,” Scott says.

“But it wasn’t us this time,” Isaac adds. “It wasn’t me who changed his ringtone the first time.”

“Who the hell else would have done it? With another Arctic Monkeys song?” Stiles asks, swinging his controller so furiously he nearly loses his grip on it.

“Well who else have you been around lately?” Scott asks, trying to play detective.

“No one! Just my Dad and Derek, mostly,” Stiles says.

“Well maybe it was Derek who hacked your ringtone,” Isaac suggests, gesturing towards Derek with the game controller.

“Yeah, maybe it was Derek,” Derek says quietly, hands stuffed in his pockets.

Stiles just stares at Derek for a moment, his jaw dropped open in shock, before dropping his controller and storming off towards the kitchen.

“Stiles!” Derek calls out before following after him.

Stiles is leaning his arms against the kitchen counter, his shoulders hunched, his head hung.

“It was one thing to have Scott and Isaac making fun of me about this, but you too?” Stiles says, sounding defeated.

Derek can’t have Stiles sounding like that. He goes and stands next to him, leaning on his elbows. “Once again, you’re remembering things wrong,” He starts. “You may have been the target of Scott’s joke, but it wasn’t your phone Isaac messed with, it was mine.”

“So?” Stiles asks. “What difference does that make?”

“Because they weren’t making fun of you, they were making fun of both of us!” Derek explains. Stiles just stares at him blankly, still not getting it. “Oh come on Stiles, you can’t honestly think I was making fun of you. Have you already forgotten how I woke up this morning?” Derek prompts, bumping his shoulder against Stiles’s.

“My Dad?”

“Your Dad, the Beacon Hills Sheriff, still in his uniform,” Derek says. “I’m sure he was very happy to find us both wearing clothes, but he probably would have been considerably happier if we weren’t wearing each other’s clothes.”

“And you responded to this horrifying incident by changing my ringtone to the chorus of _I Wanna Be Yours_?” Stiles asks. “Did you do that during breakfast?”

“No,” Derek smirks. “I changed it last night while you were doing laundry.”

“Did you want to take it back, in light of what happened this morning?” Stiles asks, cringing a little.

“Nope,” Derek doesn’t bother to hold back his grin. “Still wanna be yours.”

Stiles breaks out his biggest, brightest smile, as he leans forward and kisses Derek. It’s a short kiss, their lips the only thing touching, but Derek still chases Stiles’s lips when he breaks away. They both smile at each other, and a bit of a laugh escapes from Stiles before he dives back in for another kiss, this time putting a hand on the back of Derek’s neck to drag him closer.

“Hey, we eat in that kitchen!” Scott calls, warningly.

“Did you drive here, or run?” Stiles asks, breaking the kiss.

“I ran, I was close by anyway. Why?”

“Great, we’re bailing,” Stiles says, grabbing Derek’s hand. Derek allows himself to be dragged out of the house, Stiles flipping Scott and Isaac off as they applaud. Derek just salutes them as they congratulate Derek and Stiles on “finally pulling their heads out of their asses.”

“My place or yours?” Stiles asks. “Mine has the potential for my Dad, but yours has the potential for Peter.”

“Mine also has the potential for Cora. She’s at Malia’s since she took over tutoring,” Derek reminds him. “But she’ll be back at some point, and I don’t want to see her gloat just yet, so I vote your house.”

“My house it is,” Stiles says. “So Cora called it, too?”

“Cora called it,” Derek says, rolling his eyes.

When they get back to Stiles’s house, Stiles grabs Derek’s hand again and drags him into the house and up the stairs. As soon as they’re in Stiles’s room with the door closed, Stiles is kissing Derek again, and backing him towards the bed. The back of Derek’s legs hit the bed, and he sits down on the mattress.

“Stiles, hold up” Derek says, laughing even as he says it. “Do you want to maybe talk about what we’re doing here for a minute?”

“Not particularly?” Stiles says. “Okay, so maybe I’m torn between the rational part of me that’s like ‘maybe you should be taking it slow, man’ and the part that’s screaming ‘you’ve been taking it slow for months, just fuck his brains out!’”

Derek laughs again, and kisses Stiles, “I know the feeling.”

“Yeah? So what’s your vote?” Stiles asks.

“ _You call the shots, babe_ ,” Derek tells him with a smirk.

“Okay, rule number one is no calling me _babe_ unless you’re quoting something,” Stiles says. “Here’s what we’re going to do: we’re going to make out until I can hardly breathe, then we’re going to take a nap. Then I’m going to pick your brain with a lot of very specific questions about werewolves and prophylactics, and then at some point in the very not-distant future, we’re going to fuck each other’s brains out.”

“Sounds good to me,” Derek says. He takes Stiles by the shoulders and pushes him back on the bed. He spreads himself along the length of Stiles’s body and kisses him deeply.

“You fucker,” Stiles says between kisses. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“You said we were going to make out until you couldn’t breathe,” Derek says as he moves away from Stiles’s mouth and starts kissing down his neck. “I’m choosing to take that as a challenge. One I will very much enjoy completing.”

“That sounds fan _tast_ ic,” Stiles says. He intends it to sound like a joke, but instead it comes out as a breathless sigh.

They both sleep _very_ soundly that night, in each other’s arms. Not just content but truly happy, for the first time in far too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks.   
> If I could write smut at all, this would have an epilogue to the tune of "Stop The World I Wanna Get Off With You."   
> So if you enjoyed this at all, do yourself a favor and go listen to that song, and let your imagination run wild.


End file.
